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Songs of Daddyhood 

and Other Poems 



By 

Albert Edmund Trombly 

Author of "The Springtime of Love," "Love's Creed," etc. 




Boston 

The Gorham Press 

i 9 i 6 



Copyright, 1916, by Albert Edmund Trombly 



All Rights Reserved 






SEP -8 1916 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A, 



) GU4'382<)2 



^ /• 



*ut>. I 



"O TO WHOM" 



For the golden things you give, 
I would give as golden; 

But the voice I have is weak 
And the tune is olden. 



II 



Myrrh, too, did I think to bring, 
But my censer's brittle ; 

Yet the giver's heart is large, 
Though the gift be little. 



FOREWORD 

Songs of Daddyhood seemed to me a particu- 
larly fitting title for this group of verses. In most 
of our songs of childhood, or rather about childhood, 
the writers have attributed to children moods and 
mental states which are adult and could never be 
known to children. My songs, therefore, are frankly 
a presentation of childhood as seen with grown-up 
eyes. 

The song in French, Fais Dodo, finds justifica- 
tion, perhaps, in the fact that it is reminiscent of 
the writer's own childhood. 

In the "sonetti a coda,"' The Doctors, and 
Shakespeare, an attempt has been made at pre- 
senting to English readers the mood and manner of 
a form which was so supremely used in Italy of the 
Renaissance by such writers as Berni and II Lasca. 

Several of the poems included in this collection 
have previously appeared in the magazines. 



CONTENTS 

A Baby Welcome 1 1 

To Baby's Mother 12 

By- Low 13 

Baby Sleeps 14 

The Passing 15 

Baby's Nose 16 

Sleep 17 

My Daddy 18 

Fais Dodo 19 

To Cap the Climax 21 

Nothing New 22 

The Quest 24 

Poems 

My Garden 27 

Elegy (A. L. B.) 28 

Change 30 

A Romping 31 

Life a Song 32 

The Sonnet 33 

A Nation's Songs 34 

So Daintily 35 

The Poet to His Love 36 

We Love Well 37 

The Critics 38 

Justice 39 

Francesca 40 

Where 41 

To O. R 42 

The Imagination 43 

Spring 44 

Vignettes 45 

7 



Evolution . . 46 

The Death Mask 47 

June 18, 1915 4-8 

Shakespeare 49 

The Doctors 5° 

Creeds 51 

The Voice of Song 52 

An Old Year Song 53 

1915 54 

The Return of Spring 55 

Songs 56 

Love Songs 57 

A Dream 58 

The Poets 59 

Had I Been Monk 60 

Till the Shepherd Fold the Sheep . . 61 

Song 62 

The Litany of the Virgin 63 

The Violet's in Her Gentle Grace . . 64 

To Youth 65 

Some Far-off Day 66 

Debtors 67 

The Poet's Heart 68 

The Poet 69 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 70 

Renascence 7 1 

On Hearing an Old Song 72 

By the Hearth 73 

Maturing 74 

Love Calls 75 

The Poet to His Heart 76 

Envoi 77 



SONGS OF DADDYHOOD 



I 

A BABY WELCOME 



O you, who sojourned, O how long! 

In the alcoves of her heart, 
Pray, what did you catch of her constant song, 

Of her living and loving art? 



Have you drunk at her bosom's welling springs 
The passionate love and the calm? 

The fire will give your spirit wings 
And the quiet will yield it balm. 



Hi 



O what, little son, could I wish you more 
At your earthly journey's start 

Than that your little bosom's core 
Be a seedling of her heart? 



II 



II 

TO BABY'S MOTHER 

A little verse for you to keep 
Beneath your pillow when you sleep; 
A little song to dream upon 
When your lover's come and gone. 
And may your dreams, Beloved, be 
Dreams of happiness and me, 
Dreams in which our baby boy 
Adds to our mutual joy. 
And when you wake, Beloved One, 
Hug and kiss my little son; 
And the I that's in him then, 
Kissed, will kiss you back again! 
O in giving him to me, 
You have shown what love should be, 
You have given life new fire 
And new strings unto my lyre ! 



12 



Ill 

BY-LOW 



Go to by-low, baby, by-low, 
Go to by-low; 

Mother'll croon a little song, 
Just to help her babe along 
To the dreamy, dreamy keep 
Hidden in the land of sleep. 



II 



Go to by-low, baby, by-low, 

Go to by-low; 

Folded in a cloud of grey, 

Baby's drifting far away 

To the land where babies close 

Little dreamy eyes and doze. 



Ill 

Go to by-low, baby, by-low, 
Go to by-low. 

Now the little journey's o'er, 
Baby's reached the golden shore, 
Where among the grasses deep 
Babies only sleep and sleep. 
13 



IV 
BABY SLEEPS 



You should see him sleep like a full-fledged man, 

My six-weeks-old little one; 
He sleeps as only the shepherd can 

When drunk with the noon-day sun. 

II 

You'll know, when you see, that he sleeps with a 
will, 

With a will that nothing shakes; 
But listen a bit to the will in the shrill 

Little cry that he gives when he wakes! 



14 



V 

THE PASSING 



The flowers that bloom 
Must droop and drop, 

To leave the room 
To the younger crop. 



And I, little son, 

Must take my way, 
My work is done, 

'Tis yours to stay. 



Ill 

From the bud you'll pass 
To the flower and fall ; 

'Tis the way of the grass, 
'Tis the way of us all. 



15 



VI 
BABY'S NOSE 



Wee, little nose so soft and round, 
Wee, little, bud-like nose, 

Good, little nose to tease, I found, 
Till a little baby doze. 



n 



Two little beads of deep, deep blue, 
Two little patches of sky, 

Two little beads that stare at you 
With a rogue in either eye. 



Ill 



Rounded head and a rounded cheek, 
Round little cheek and chin, 

Velvet and plush so soft and sleek 
To bury my fingers in. 



IV 



Two little hands and two little feet, 
Wee little fingers and toes, 

Dear little mouth so pink and sweet, 
But, O for the little nose! 
16 



VII 
SLEEP 



Lullaby, baby, hush and sleep, 
Would you dare hold slumber cheap? 
By and by you may believe 
Sleep's the best thing we achieve. 



11 



Lullaby, baby, hush and sleep, 
Why so early cry and weep? 
Tears enough await the man, 
Smile and slumber while you can. 



17 



VIII 

MY DADDY 

My dad is only a grown-up baby, 

Whatever the other daddies may be; 

For oftentime when I lie awake 

He'll come to my room, and he'll stand and shake 

His fingers at me and tell me to speak! 

And if I don't he's likely to tweak 

My nose or even to pinch my cheek! 

And if I cry he tries to smother 

My crying, while he cries to mother 

To come and quiet this rogue of a lad 

Before he drives the neighbors mad! 

Now don't you think he's a funny daddy? 

And aren't you glad that you're not his laddie? 



18 



IX 
FAIS DODO 



Fais dodo, mon petit bonhomme, 
Fais done dodo; 

Pleurer comme qa, ce n'est pas beau, 
Fais un petit somme. 



II 



Fais dodo, et cache tes larmes, 
Fais done dodo; 

Que de plus doux qu'un petit repos 
Tout sans alarmes? 



Ill 

Fais dodo, someille, someille, 
Fais done dodo; 

Le monde te criera tot, trop tot, 
"Eveille! eveille!" 



IV 



Fais dodo, mon petit blondin, 
Fais un petit somme; 
Bientot tu seras un petit homme! 
Sage ou coquin? 

IQ 



Fais dodo, et plus d'alarmes, 
Fais done dodo; 
Plus tard tu verras qu'on a beau 
Verser des larmes. 



VI 



Fais dodo, mon petit bonhomme, 

Fais done dodo; 

Pleurer comme ca, qu'est ce que ca vaut? 

Fais un petit somme. 



20 



TO CAP THE CLIMAX 

To, cap the climax you have sent 
A tiny bonnet, which is meant 
For that dear, little, human mite, 
Who hasn't yet come into sight, 
But will, I think, ere summer's spent. 

You know, we two were not content 
With two strings to our instrument, 

A third, we thought, would make it right 
To cap the climax. 

And say, what would you think anent 

This lodger coming to our tent, 
If some day he should put to flight 
His daddy with the songs he'll write 

In praise of her by whom he's sent 
To cap the climax! 



21 



XI 
NOTHING NEW 



"Nothing new under the sun," 
That's what the moralists say, 
Who long ago have bartered youth 
For heads and hearts of grey. 



"Nothing new under the sun," 
That's what the worldings say, 
Who cannot see the buttercups 
Growing from day to day. 



in 



"Nothing new under the sun," 
That's what I used to say, 
Before my heart had caught from 
The tunes that Love can play. 



IV 



"Nothing new under the sun," 
Let them, who think it, say; 
But a little child is born to me 
And Love has had its way. 
22 



"Nothing new under the sun," 
That's what my child will say ; 
But Love in time will come to him 
And scatter that dream away. 



23 



XII 

THE QUEST 

O could I for a moment rest 
From man's eternal, ancient quest, 
Then life might for a moment seem 
The dreaming of a pleasant dream. 
But lurking in a woman's face, 
Are lure and impulse to the chase; 
And in my blood the tameless Will 
That bent and yoked and drives me still! 
The chase was old when Homer sung, 
But Helen's face is still as young; 
And still man launches black-hulled ships 
To follow after woman's lips; 
And still my son, when I am gone, 
And his son's son shall follow on. 



24 



POEMS 



MY GARDEN 

Within a secret garden-close, 
Which none except my spirit knows, 
I dwell alone, aloof, apart, 
Attentive to my voiceful heart; 
And what it says from day to day 
No vulgar ear will hear me say ; 
Yet in the world I play a role 
To mask the purpose of my soul. 
Men think they know me well, but I 
Was never seen by human eye; 
And kings who conquer sea and land 
Can never touch upon my strand; 
Not Love himself could ever win 
The sentinel to let him in! 
My wall is proof against assail 
And though men batter, I'll not quail. 
Alone, apart, aloof I dwell, 
My heart to me is heaven and hell ! 



27 



ELEGY 
(A. L. B.) 



Why should we sorrow for the dead? 

Yet shall we grieve that she is gone; 
But rather had our tears be shed 

For those she never smiled upon. 
For there was that within her eye 
Which dies not though the body die. 



The flowers all through the May-time cast 
Sweet grains of beauty from their hearts, 

Which after their brief season's past 
Will bloom afresh when April starts. 

So in our hearts her love has set 

Perennial-blooming violet. 



Ill 



She gave her life as others give 
The trivial things of every day; 

She gave her life that we might live, 
She fell in pointing out the way. 

And though our sons forget her name, 

The love she sowed will bloom the same. 
28 



IV 



Hers was a woman's tender breast 
That weeps to hear another sigh; 

She longed to bring the sufFrer rest, 
She could not see a daisy die. 

She loved the Spring and loved the Fall, 

Her heart was large enough for all. 



O in the turf above her set 

The flowers she loved, to mark her grave; 
They'll keep her, though we men forget, 

And give her back the love she gave. 
And death, perchance, may seem less drear 
If she can know that they are near. 



29 



CHANGE 

I have been young and often hoped my art 
Might win a thousand ears; now wiser grown 
I am content to sing and hear alone 

If my poor songs can but delight my heart. 



30 



A ROMPING 



We two, we went a romping, 
A romping into town, 

And never made a purchase 
Of feather or of gown. 



II 



We trotted by the book-stall 

And by the candy-shop, 
For we were bent on going 

And didn't care to stop. 

HI 

And through the larger Townland, 
We two, as merry-souled, 

Shall ever go a romping, 
We vagabonds of old ! 



31 



LIFE A SONG 



Our lives are as a poem, 

And the languid days we know 

Are the strophes in which the singer's 
Heart falters and only beats slow. 



II 



And the nimble hours of gladness 
Full of love and of you and of me 

Are the quick, sharp verse where the poet 
Is drunken with ecstasy! 



32 



THE SONNET 

They think thy flight is broken, deem thy wings 
Meagre and all too worn to rise and soar 
Full of the splendor that was thine before 

A thousand hearts had beat upon thy strings. 

Yet Dante only heard thine echoings, 

And Laura's lover never guessed thy core, 
Too seldom Keats has lingered by thy door, 

And sweet Rossetti's lips but touched thy springs. 

Lute of the subtle cadences, that take 

Their essence from the heart that pants for breath, 
Let me but catch thy faintest undertones, 
That when I touch thy stops my numbers slake 
The thirst of youth for life, of age for death 
And chill the marrow deepest in their bones! 



33 



A NATION'S SONGS 



Men often think a nation's song 
Must clatter of war and trade, 

But Love and song will triumph long 
After these have all decayed. 



II 



For love is older than the earth 
And mightier far than arms, 

And more than earth called silver worth 
And dowered with subtler charms. 



in 



And men perchance in after years 
Will find the songs I sung 

Outlive for years what battle rears, 
For old, they are ever young! 



34 



SO DAINTILY 

So daintily you did your hair 

This afternoon it made me stare ! 

I thought you looked but five years old 
With all that brown abundance rolled 

And gathered up and fastened there. 

Is that the way that you would wear 
Your little five-year locks of hair 
When, playing "lady," out you strolled? 
So daintily? 

I tell you that there never were 
Such children as this little pair! 
Nor do I think it over-bold 
To say that pair won't soon be old ; 
For can't you always do your hair 
So daintily? 



35 



THE POET TO HIS LOVE 

A little span, and then, my friend, 
This love of you and me must end. 
To men 'twill seem like many a year, 
To us 'twill scarce a day appear. 
And all too soon that ghoulish Death, 
Will chill us with his marshy breath ; 
And all too soon his venomed darts 
Will choke the passion in our hearts. 
But while we can, why, let's exhort 
Our hearts to live; life is so short! 
Too soon, too soon 'twill close its door 
And you and I can love no more. 
And I no more can see your face, 
Nor feel the warmth of your embrace; 
For both these hearts, she lent of old. 
The earth will claim and turn to mold ; 
And all that will be at the last, 
Will be that we have come and past. 
Then while we may, why, let's exhort 
Our hearts to love; life is so short! 



36 



WE LOVE WELL 



No lovers April-mated, 
Nor ante-natal fated, 
Were ever quite as happy, 
Nor fond as you and I ; 
For, Love, through every weather 
We laugh and cling together, 
We play well, and work well, 
But most of all we love well ! 



II 



The world was but a sad thing, 
Which we have made a glad thin| 
By asking but a little, 
And ever giving much. 
For, Love, through every weather 
We laugh and cling together, 
We play well, and work well, 
But most of all we love well! 



37 



THE CRITICS 

They are mirrors that vary in shape and in size, 
Some are large, others little, convex, and con- 
cave; 

They distort what they show to the onlookers' eyes 
And never quite give what the poet gave. 



38 



JUSTICE 

The Justice mortals know on earth 
Is scant and all too little worth! 
The innocent is branded bad, 
The thinker mocked as he were mad, 
The poet starved, the prophet stoned, 
The parent cursed, the child disowned, 
While crime and folly, hand in hand, 
Go revelling throughout the land! 

But Justice after death is sure! 

She falters not: her reason's pure! 

And what was dust before its birth 

She relegates unto the earth. 

The singer's heart that beat so fast, 

The father loving to the last, 

The brain that knew the daring thought, 

The fool and sinner sold and bought, 

In death are dust — and over all 

Does Justice lay a common pall : 

For heaven or hell though they contend, 

'Tis earth men come to in the end! 



39 



FRANCESCA 

In that dread circle of the Tuscan's hell — 
Where souls are driven by a hurricane 
Fitfully onward like wind-beaten rain 

Or driftwood on the ocean's fall and swell — 

Francesca is, the dark-eyed damosel 
Who, for a moment's passionate love, was fain 
To die and suffer everlasting pain 

Rather than with a hated monster dwell. 

I know not whether mortals still would lose 
Their lives to dote upon their lovers' charms 
Or risk their souls to win a yearned-for kiss; 
But I, Francesca, swear I'd sooner choose 
Eternal hell in thy voluptuous arms, 

Than heav'n beside the virgin Beatrice! 



40 



WHERE 



When out of the dank of midnight 
The wind sweeps in with a shout, 

Where does the flame of the candle 
Go, when the light goes out ? 



When the anguish of the fever 

Dies, and once again 
The calm of health is on us, 

What has become of the pain? 

ill 

And when the lovely body 
Lies cold and still and dead, 

Where is that which moved it, 
O where has the spirit fled? 



41 



TO O. R. 

{Who has devoted her life to the care of her 
father) 

Ah, yours might well have been a different lot! 

You might have tilled a far remoter field; 

But yours has had a more abundant yield 
Than could have come from any distant plot. 
Yours is the simple life, and humble cot; 

But yours the heart whose gentle vigil healed 

Age of its cares and stood it as a shield 
'Gainst sorrow for what was and now is not. 

In your large love you have forgotten self 

And all your thought has been, and all you've 
done, 
To make life fair and sweeter for another. 
And yours must be a larger gain than pelf; 
For we who love him feel that you have won 
In each of us a sister or a brother! 



42 



THE IMAGINATION 

I dwell in the mind of man, 
But his little brain is not my span; 
For I look at all with a larger view 
Than ever the eye of a mortal knew. 
To me a star is but a spark, 
That flashes a moment and then is dark, 
And the earth but a spatter of cosmic matter, 
And the sun but a will-o-the-wisp ! 

Or the earth may seem as a human face 

With continents to take the place 

Of nose and mouth and cheek and brow; 

Mountains and valleys are wrinkles now ; 

Volcanoes are pimples and craters pores, 

And earthquakes epidermic sores, 

And the sea that reflects the blue of the sky 

Is the iris of a liquid eye! 



43 



SPRING 

Much as the lover, when at first he woos, 
Is thwarted in a way to daunt the bold: 
The coy and artful maiden seems so cold 

That, though his ardor grow, he fears to lose: 

Yet if, with days and days, he still refuse 
Defeat, his passion will at length take hold 
Upon her heart, and knock till it unfold 

Its treasured hoard of love's own golden hues; 

Through winter months the sun has wooed the 
earth, 
And she much colder than the coldest lass, 
Has left her lover pleading at the door. 
But now she feels how much his love is worth, 
Her heart is big with bursting leaves and grass, 
And Spring's old miracle is wrought once 
more! 



44 



VIGNETTES 



Windflower, nodding 

Jacks-in-the-pulpit among, 

Yours is the praise the blackbird sung. 

II 

Welcome, March, 
Pussy-willow and tufted larch, 
Robin, freshet, and croaking frogs! 

in 

Star of the morning, 

Lost with the breaking of day, 

Glad to have pleased for thy little stay. 

IV 

Say, Meadow-lark, 

You whistle to the lonely fields, 

But do you know the ears that mark? 



April, you come 

Laughing at them who sorrow and fret, 

Smelling of lilac and violet! 

VI 

Pink-cheeked clover, 
Loving June and perfect skies, 
Haunt of bees and butterflies. 
45 



EVOLUTION 

When first the waters parted from the lea, 

What now are hills were then an upland plain ; 

But as the ages passed the harrowing rain 
Furrowed the earth and valleys came to be. 
The world is aging, and each century 

Is wearing down the highlands to the main ; 

And when they all are levelled off again, 
New rains will gouge out rivers to the sea. 

And so with mortals when the race was young: 
Till Time made kings of some, of others thralls, 
Our fathers' fathers equal title bore. 
Now have we from the kings their sceptres wrung, 
But when the future into present falls, 

Shall we return to what we were of yore? 



46 



THE DEATH MASK 

Whose is that hanging there, that plaster cast, 
Which awes and dominates th' entire room? 
Inanimate though it be, it seems to loom 

Like some dread Caesar rising from the past. 

And round that sphinx's nose and brow is massed 
A something magical — unlike the gloom, 
Which hovers round the charnel or the tomb — 

That fascinates and makes me stand aghast! 

That is the beak which left a thousand scars, 

Th' inexorable mouth at whose command were 
hurled 
Monarchs to earth and kingdoms built anew. 
And see the brow which not a wrinkle mars, 
Indomptable as when it swayed the world, 
And calm in death as after Waterloo! 



47 



JUNE 1 8, 1915. 

How many times in after years he grieved 
As gazing seaward at an unseen shore 
He dreamed upon the days that were no more 

And of the realm of which he was bereaved. 

And then that ghastly day! Who'd have believed 
It could have ended thus? If as of yore 
The troops had seen their white plumed knight 
before, 

What splendid glory would have been achieved ! 

To-night Napoleon's spirit hovers there 
Over the plain that men call Waterloo 

And nods to Murat that he lead the fight. 
The spectre guards advance against the square, 
Then follow shadowy horse that gallop through, 
And all the hostile phantoms break in flight! 



Note: The white-plumed knight is Murat, who 
dressed for battle as for parade. At St. Helena 
Napoleon often said that if he had had Murat at 
Waterloo, the French would have been victorious. 



48 



SHAKESPEARE 

If you dropped in upon us nowadays 

To know what men are saying, what they do; 
I'm sure you'd never guess that it was you 

On whom they pile such stuff and dust and praise. 

'Twould make you wonder, pinch yourself, and gaze 
Around and say: "I'm I, but never knew 
The fellow you describe; and all that's true 

Is that I needed cash and wrote my plays!" 

Sometimes they're sentimental, so they find 

That such and such a play could not be yours, 
It's much too bloody, coarse, and all too vile. 
And there are those of such a goodly mind, 
They make you Catholic, against the boors, 
Who claimed you were a German for a while. 
I hardly wonder, Will, that you must smile ; 
But think of those whose brains have been so shaken 
That they can catch in you the smell of bacon ! 



49 



THE DOCTORS 

Berni, you should be living at this hour; 

The world has need of you, for she's a fen 

Of Phds. ; she has no longer men 
But simply doctors, doctors, by the shower. 
And when I think of what has been the power, 

In bygone days, of your fool-damning pen, 

I wish you might return to us again 
To make a few of my pet doctors cower. 

Upon my word, they're such stupendous asses, 
So bloated up with nothing (that's themselves) 
That they won't see how asinine they are ! 
They write you splendid books, too; and in masses, 
Which serve to keep the dust from soiling shelves; 
They're also good to keep a door ajar! 
Berni, you said that of the ills that mar 
Our human lot, the worst's "to have a wife." 
But times have changed, my friend, and with them 
life; 
And if you care to beat wives ten degrees 
Just get acquainted with the Phds.! 



50 



CREEDS 

As when at night a child is sent to bed, 

Who fears the boding darkness of the room, 
He sees from every nook and corner loom 

Here hungry eyes of green and there of red, 

And hears upon the stair a stealthy tread, 
And by him sweep a witch's ridden broom, 
But feels secure from beast and goblin doom 

When he has drawn the covers round his head, 

So men who fear the grave's impending night, 
And see lean shadows rising from the brink 
That yawns to claim us from our latest breath, 
Have drawn around them dreams of dreamed-of 
light 
And life transcending life, with which they think 
To steel them when they reach the bank of 
Death ! 



51 



THE VOICE OF SONG 



I hear a plaintive music that's beating at my heart, 
'Tis the cadence of a song of long ago ; 

I know not whence it rises but well I know the smart 
Of the longing that has sung its sorrow so. 



I cannot guess its meaning yet its sadness makes me 

fear 

'Tis a dirge for all the lovely things that die; 

O can it be the voice of Time to say the season's 

near 

When youth and early love must pass us by? 



52 



AN OLD YEAR SONG 



The year is old, 
I still am young; 

His songs are told 
Mine to be sung. 

II 

He sang of Spring 
And flowers pied ; 

The first took wing 
The latter died. 

in 

I sing of love, 

And, Love, of you, 
Since love's still love 

And you are you. 

IV 

And when I'm old 
And Love still young, 

He'll sing the old 
Love-songs I sung. 



53 



1915 



New Year, 

What will you bring 
When the Winter passes 

And blooms the Spring? 

II 

The old year yielded 
Pleasure and pain ; 

Some days of sunshine 
Some of rain. 

in 

If you can follow 
You need not fear, 

You will be welcome, 
New Year! 



54 



THE RETURN OF SPRING 



Heart, filled with a passionate music, 
Music that comes of a yearning, 
How shall we tell of the passion 
If the tongue falter? 

II 

Spring will return with the new moon, 
Voluptuous spring and its flowers, 
And woodlands will hush to the throstle'? 
Amorous calling. 

Ill 

April will sing with its showers 
Lispingly through the new green-leaves, 
But we, O heart filled with music, 
We must be silent! 



55 



SONGS 



The songs I live from day to day 
Outnumber far the songs I sing, 

For some are all too sad to stay 
And some too swift of wing! 

II 

And some are like a roguish boy, 
Too full for art to match, 

And some are songs which I enjoy 
But which I cannot catch. 



Ill 

And some of them are sharp and deep 
And sting and bite the heart, 

And others rock the pain to sleep 
And others drown the smart. 



IV 

So those I live from day to day- 
Outnumber far the songs I sing. 

For some are all too sad to stay 
And some too swift of wing! 



56 



LOVE SONGS 



To know thee, incomparable woman, 
Is to know all the promise of April, 
The warmth of luxuriant Summer, 
And Autumn's quiet. 

II 

Often my slumber is broken 
By dreams oppressive with yearning; 
I gasp, and I waken to find thee 
Sleeping beside me. 

Ill 

As the west wind tempers the season, 
Which else had been frosty or sultry, 
So thou dost temper thy lover's 
Tempestuous being. 

IV 

Silent, I gaze at the sun set 
Slowly, then faster and faster; 
It sinks; and I sigh that we too, Love, 
Sometime must follow. 



Love, do not think that thy lover 
Will put by his youth and his love-songs; 
My heart's but attuned and my season's 
Still in the springtime. 
57 



A DREAM 

I dreamed that I was come where women were, 
Many and fair and comely in their dress; 
Some passed me by, and round me some would 
press : 

Their lips were sweet, their hair was lovelier. 

And though they spoke, my body did not stir ; 

My heart was filled with such a large distress, 
That all the yearning I have known seems less, 

And if I try to tell it I must err. 

And as I saw one pass, I know not why 

My heart reached after her with such increase 
Of yearning as it knows when it must weep. 
And with the tears a veil fell from mine eye, 
And as you stood revealed, I felt that peace 
Was on my heart and quiet in my sleep. 



58 



THE POETS 



Of old they tuned their singing 
To shepherds' reedy flutes, 

To pebble-broken waters 
And mirth-compelling lutes. 



And what they sang, their brothers 
Have heard with eager ears, 

And in their hearts have treasured 
Those songs for days and years. 

ill 

To-day the poets clamor 

To trumpets and the drum, 

But will their broken measures 
Be known of men to come? 



59 



HAD I BEEN MONK 

Had I been monk and you a nun, 
Under a thirteenth century sun, 
Although your convent had been far 
From mine, as convents sometimes are, 
I would have known that you were there, 
And you of me had been aware; 
And I'd have stolen out at night, 
When the holy monks and nuns recite 
Their beads, and gone with a hot foot-fall 
Up to your convent and scaled the wall, 
And panting crept to your very cell, 
And wooed you with the fire of hell! 

And if the abbot had found me out, 

I'd have put his pious threats to rout 

With a meagre hint at your virgin face 

Your voice and step and girlish grace! 

I'd have made him rival, I am sure, 

And damped his Paters and Aves pure! 

And still I'd have gone from night to night, 

From the vesper-service to my delight, 

Over miles of road and a wall beside, 

To steal from Christ his sweetest bride, 

To don Love's garb and doff my cowl, 

To win your heart and to damn my soul ! 



60 



TILL THE SHEPHERD FOLD THE SHEEP 



Sleep, my pretty darling, sleep, 
Sleep, my Mary, sleep and rest, 

Till the shepherd fold the sheep 
And the primrose droop its crest. 



Sleep, my pretty maiden, sleep, 
Sleep, my darling, sleep and rest; 

Dream of little brooks that leap 
And of groves v \vhere linnets nest. 

Ill 

Sleep, my pretty darling, sleep, 
Sleep, my Mary, sleep and rest 

Till the stars begin to peep 
And the day die in the West. 



61 



SONG 



I love the pink-cheeked morning 
Because it heralds day, 

And the sun and rain of April 
For they foretell the May. 

ii 

I love a lonely cartpath 
Which offers me solitude, 

And an afternoon in August, 
For it gives me time to brood. 

HI 

I love the violet evening, 

For it brings the vesper star; 

All these for what they promise — 
But I love you for what you are. 



62 



THE LITANY OF THE VIRGIN 

Oft as a child — when all the gathered fold 

Knelt by the hearth to tell the evening prayer, 
And my good mother as the priestess there 

The litany of Virgin Mary told, 

Child that I was, I harkened, and behold — 
I fell adreaming, and became aware 
Of angels rising on a gleaming stair, 

And saw the Mystic Rose and House of Gold. 

Now years have grown upon the dreaming child, 
Years which have yielded doubt, and doubt a creed 
Unlike the teaching of my early days. 
Yet when I muse on what so oft beguiled 

My childish heart to mystic dreams, I need 
A giant strength to keep my pagan ways. 



63 



THE VIOLET'S IN HER GENTLE GRACE 



The violet's in her gentle grace, 
The linnet in her voice, 

The spring is in her lovely face, 
Her eyes were April's choice. 

II 

Her smile is as the virgin smile 

Of Dante's Beatrice; 
But, oh, she got from Circe's isle 

The magic of her kiss ! 



64 



TO YOUTH 

{After De Banville) 

Laddie without melancholy, 
Blond as Roman suns, and jolly, 
Treasure up your pretty folly. 

That is wisdom! Cherish wine, 
Beauty, and the spring divine. 
That's enough; the rest resign. 

Smile though darkling clouds amass, 
And when spring brings back the grass 
Heap up flowers in your glass. 

To the limbs returned to clay, 
What remains, except that they 
Loved a month or two of May? 

"Try to know effects and causes," 
Says the dreamer as he dozes. 
Idle words! Let's cull the roses! 



6 5 



SOME FAR-OFF DAY 

A gift of thine to please my heavy heart, 

And fashioned by that deft and eager hand ! 

Ah, who can know the woman, Love, thou art? 
Some far-off day, perchance, I'll understand. 



66 



DEBTORS 

Where will you claim a grave beneath the sky, 
Knowing your life has not made men the better? 

So live and work, that when you come to die 
The world, instead of you, will be the debtor. 



67 



THE POET'S HEART 



Your blood is fire, O my heart, 

You will not smolder, will not rest; 

You'll goad me with a final start 
When I strike out across the west. 



II 

And when my day's last hour is told, 
And night empurples hill and sky, 

When hand and lips and brain are cold, 
O heart, you'll be the last to die! 



68 



THE POET 

Men tell of one who died long, long ago, 

Slain at the hands of them he came to save ; 

He gave them love, and they, barbarians, gave 
Him death, a crown of thorns, and taunt and blow. 
And others, too, have lived and suffered so; 

And sunk unwept to some inglorious grave; 

Yet they had also come that men might brave 
The better what of life is toil and woe. 

Such, poet, is your lot! You bare your heart 
Before men's eyes — you give them in your song 
The love your lavish heart can never hide; 
But vandal-like they tread upon your art; 

For want of thorns, they do you meaner wrong, 
And, mocking, laugh to see you crucified. 



69 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 

Time is the path of change, and ft may be 
That on the brow of some dim future lurks 
Rekindled love of what the present shirks; 

Devotion to impassioned poesy. 

What visions are there now that poets see? 
Shorn of his heart each ballad-monger irks 
The day with cries at which the rabble smirks 

A moment, 'twixt the counting-house and tea. 

But in that longed-for season men may turn 
Away from war and lust and search for pelf 
And novel whims which they mistake for song, 
And look to thee, and in thy numbers learn 
How Love is Beauty, Beauty Love itself, 

And wonder why they've let you sleep so long 1 



70 



RENASCENCE 

I love to think that, when we two are dead 
And some fond hand has laid us side by side, 
These lovely limbs in which we take such pride 

Shall be as one with our cool earthy bed. 

I cannot think of life when life has fled ; 
And yet a feeling w T hich I cannot hide 
Woos me to think that even if I died 

The grass must grow the deeper for my head. 

For O the young blood leaping in my heart 
Which answers thine, can ever that be still, 
Though earth enclose it in an earthy tomb? 
When April comes and all things earthly start, 
Will it not then, despite the Winter's chill, 
In violets and honeysuckles bloom? 



71 



ON HEARING AN OLD SONG 

Like to the burden of an old refrain 

Which one recalls, though he forgot it long, 
My heart is quickened with the old-year song 

I sang to voice my love's delight and pain. 

Yet early love must sing a feeble strain, 

Though youthful ears acclaim it sweet and strong, 
For boyish lays to boyish love belong, 

While song is strengthened if the love make gain. 

I know not if this song will sweeter be 
Than are the songs of many other men; 

Nor whether deepened love has taught me how 
To sing, than I was wont, more worthily ; 

But since, when first I sung, I loved thee then, 
O think, dear Love, how I must love thee now ! 



72 



BY THE HEARTH 

I hear you singing at your work 
And sunshine shimmers through the mirk. 
I listen still, and still you sing: 
The Fall's forgotten, it is Spring! 
And I see gathered in your face 
The beauty of an ancient race; 
And in your port I see the queen 
That in another age has been. 
The fragrance of an odorous flower 
Your breath has taken as its dower; 
The beauty of the sky and wood 
Plave passed into your womanhood ! 
And though you teach no foreign tongue, 
I see you, and my heart is young. 
You need not talk philosophy, 
Your silence is a text to me. 



73 



MATURING 



Though the thing that it tell of be truthful, 
And the love that it sing of be passion, 

My heart is but callow and youthful 
And artless whatever it fashion. 



II 



Yet seasoned with time it will ripen 
As the violin does or the cello; 

And with every new song as I pipe on, 
Its timber will deepen and mellow. 



74 



LOVE CALLS 



"Incipit vita nova," Dante said, 
O grey-blue eyes and good, brown head. 
How well we know the thing he meant: 
Love came, and something went. 



II 



Young hearts will wander far afield, 
Thirsting for all that youth may yield, 
But from the hills on which they roam 
Love calls them home. 



75 



THE POET TO HIS HEART 

Life is so short that soon the Night 

Will swallow up life's candlelight. 
Then, O my heart, 'tis ours to cast 
Our lot with Day while day will last 

For dark outwits the human sight. 

Can we afford to pause and slight 
The truth in dreaming black is white? 
The day rides high, 'twill soon be past, 
Life is so short. 

Why should a dreaded dreamed of might 
The seen and known and living blight? 

Nail up the Present to the mast 

And beat, my heart, beat fast, beat fast! 
Let ours be like a meteor's flight 
Life is so short ! 



7 6 



ENVOI 

As to lowly flowers 
Hidden in the grass, 

Which she stoops to gather 
While her comrades pass, 

Catches of my manhood, 
Though you fail to win 

Ready hearts in others, 
She will take you in. 



77 



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